Such Good Work

DEBUT In 2013, Jonas Anderson is an insecure creative writing instructor whose students view him skeptically, but no more skeptically than Jonas views himself. A recovering addict, Jonas battles his past life daily, and his desire for pills bedevils him always. A chronic failure at teaching and writing, Jonas stumbles through a series of jobs and relationships, eventually moving from the United States to Sweden. There he encounters a refugee crisis, an Afghan teenager named Aziz, and, ultimately, his purpose. Through first-person narration and a style that is deceptively simple and straightforward, Lichtman crafts a character we hope will succeed and with whom we can sympathize ("My life, like all lives, regularly presented me with pain"). Displaying a wry humor that sometimes harkens back to the wacky drug ravings of Hunter S. Thompson, the dialog is mostly sharp and witty, though toward the end it loses some of its edge, yet the overall narrative momentum and sincerity never flag. Using an episodic, sometimes staccato structure, debuter Lichtman sees Jonas through self-obsessed confusion to certain determination to do and be good.